The MBA Student Voice

Hire Learning

In college football, signing day is a big deal. It marks the first day a recruit can sign a letter of intent to play college football. It also represents the culmination of what can be four years of recruiting. Signing day was especially kind to UCLA this year, as the Bruins hauled in a class that some analysts rank as high as number 12 in the nation. Why am I mentioning this? I don’t know. Maybe more people will go to Anderson tailgates next year.

What I’m getting at is that it’d be really nice if business school had a signing day. Why can’t the first Wednesday in February be the day in which every first-year student signs a letter of intent for a summer internship? Wishful thinking, I guess. Still, many of my friends have landed their summer gigs. If you’re an investment banker, you’ve most likely accepted an offer. Same goes with some on the consulting and marketing career paths. But for those of us who are chasing more non-traditional MBA roles, the recruiting process can take longer.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I’m recruiting for entertainment. I liken entertainment recruiting to Chicago winters. They can start as early as September and last into April or May. I started the recruiting process in September by reaching out to alumni for informational interviews. Right now I’m sending out applications and doing a few interviews. But I’ve fully conditioned myself to the fact that I may not have an offer until the spring. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not throwing a pity party. Instead, I look at this process as an opportunity to network more, learn about the opportunities out there, and find the perfect one.

So what is the perfect role? I’m glad you asked. I don’t know. But what I do know is that Anderson is doing everything in its power to help me figure that out. Thanks to the resources of the Entertainment Management Association (EMA), I’ve been able to do some incredible networking this quarter. Since being back from break, I’ve made recruiting trips to a number of studios, including Sony, Paramount, Warner Bros., Disney and Fox. I’ve also participated in sponsored trips to Hulu and Creative Artists Agency.

Our esteemed group at Paramount. I’m the guy in the dark suit.

If you’re not impressed, consider my recent trip to New York. In two days in the Big Apple, a number of entertainment-focused classmates and I visited NBC Universal, IAC, Focus Features, Tribeca Enterprises, Google, ABC/ESPN and Fox. We met with alumni at pretty much each stop and adhered to my b-school motto: ABN (always be networking). 

I know what you’re thinking, but no, I did not make the cut in the Rockettes tryouts. Why do you think I'm looking for a job?

I also found time to go to the Sundance Film Festival with some friends from the EMA. I saw a few great movies, soaked up the celebrity scene, and attended a Stella Artois party that was highlighted by free waffles. Free waffles! I mean, seriously, does it get any better?

Snow in Utah. Very pretty. You know what it doesn’t do in L.A.? Snow. And I’m fine with that.

My point is that if I already had my job, maybe I wouldn’t be as eager to take advantage of these amazing opportunities. Still, if you’re hiring, let me know. 

-Willem

Follow me on Twitter: @willsouthwood

 

Settling into 2012

Winter quarter is well under way, and it is safe to say that we are now entering the "meat" of the quarter.  Most of us have completed what I like to call the "courtship" period of any new quarter - the introductory period when students attend various electives before locking down a schedule.  One thing that this "courtship" period has shown me is the extent to which my classmates seek to customize their classroom learning over this 20 month journey.  UCLA Anderson provides its MBAs with a flexible curriculum (12 electives), which provides us substantial freedom to organize our academic experiences around our specific needs and interests.  It's encouraging to see my peers take that freedom seriously.

Given the amount of time I spent recruiting last quarter, it's tempting for me to think that getting a dream job is the main objective of coming to b-school.  But with the recruiting season behind me, I have realized that I truly enjoy having more time and space to savor the academic component of b-school learning.  If all goes according to plan, I won't have to miss any more class due to job interviews.  That said, I must say that my professors last quarter were incredibly supportive of my recruiting efforts.  I appreciate the fact that the faculty and career services staff are on the same page when it comes to supporting their students' career aspirations.

As for my classes on deck for the winter quarter?  Thinking On Your Feet, Marketing Strategy & Planning, and Motivating Management.  I am also doing a Fall/Winter AMR Field Study with four of my most stellar classmates working on a marketing plan for a client seeking to launch a plus-sized women's clothing line.  More detail to come in my next post.  Should be a fun quarter.

- Jesse Ferlianto '12

Me and 2 of my stellar Applied Management Research (AMR) teammates

Winter Break? Not Quite

I’d like to start this post by wishing everyone a happy holiday season. I’m especially happy this holiday season because finals are over. Not that I don’t like taking four three-hour exams in consecutive days, but…wait, yeah, I don’t like taking four three-hour exams in consecutive days.

All kidding aside, last week was finals week and it was an incredibly challenging experience. After I wrapped up my accounting exam, the final of all finals, I thought I’d want to run out of the room and be greeted by falling confetti and an overflowing bottle of champagne. Instead, I was so mentally exhausted from the week that all I wanted to do was sleep. To all of my classmates, I apologize for my zombie-like demeanor the rest of the day. 

But honestly, now that I’m a week removed from finals, I can look back on the quarter and really appreciate how much I learned. The professors were fantastic, the material engaging, and the classmate collaborators inspiring. It was an unbelievably arduous and humbling quarter, but one that I can look back on quite fondly.

You know what else I can look back on fondly? The Anderson Breckenridge Ski Trip. Yep, once finals wrapped up, I, along with 100-plus of my classmates, left on a jet plane to (John) Denver and bused to Breckenridge, Colorado. There we skied (or boarded depending on your preference), hot tubbed, enjoyed a few adult beverages and were model guests at the Mountain Thunder Lodge. Jim Mora, Jr. would have been proud.

 Sitting by the fire in Breck-not a bad way to recover from figuring out LIFO and FIFO!

But the fun didn’t end once we got back from Breckenridge. Some of us headed immediately to the San Francisco Bay Area for “Silicon Valley Days on the Job.” The High Tech Business Association and Entertainment Management Association hosted this trek and it was nothing short of amazing. In a three-day span I visited eight companies, including YouTube, Twitter, Pixar, Meebo, Yahoo!, Pandora, Ustream, and Revision3. Others made stops at Google, Visa, and eBay to name a few. I’m amazed at how much I learned in such a short time at each company. Even better, I met several fascinating people who hopefully will be great contacts down the road as I search for a summer internship and, later, a full-time job.

Pixar won these Oscars. Not me.

So winter break is underway, but it hasn’t been much of a break. I think that’s a theme here at the MBA Student Voice. But it’s better to be busy than bored, so I’ll take this hectic December. However, once the college football bowl season picks up, I'll probably revert back to my zombie-like state. Just fair warning.

 -Willem

Follow me on twitter: @willsouthwood

 

Two Thirds of the Way There

I can't believe that 4 out of the 6 quarters making up the Anderson experience are behind me.  People say that the first quarter is the most difficult, but for me, the most recent quarter was by far the most challenging.  After having the first year behind me, I must have thought to myself, "sure, I have a good sense of how things work around here, why don't I take it up another gear and take on more in year 2?".  (Jesse, what were you thinking?) 

The process of signing up for these various commitments at the end of last year went something like this:  

Career coach?  Sure.  Recruiter Relations position with the Marketing Association?  Why not.  Sussman's "Cases in Real Estate" class?  Bring it.  Net Impact Board Fellows Program?  Yes.  Peer tutor?  Yes.  AMR project?  Of course.  Classes with a lot of group projects that require more coordination?  Love it.  Recruiting for full-time positions and over 15,000 miles of travel for onsite interviews?...

...well let's just say that this last piece snuck up on me.  It was by far the most time consuming aspect of this quarter, but I had to jump in.  The window of opportunity for many of the most sought-after MBA full-time jobs is short - about 8 weeks across October thru December.  Securing a career-switching dream job was one of my main goals coming into Anderson, so this was the time to get after it.  Plus, the stakes are higher this time around since as a second year, we "play for keeps" (full-time as opposed to a summer internship).  In light of this, I took a broad approach to my search.  Unfortunately, I had already committed to a full schedule (mentioned above) and it was too late to step down and right-size my schedule.  Bye bye sleep...

Thankfully, I survived!  I completed the course work, stuck to my volunteer commitments, secured a few job offers, and didn't fall asleep behind the wheel.   

Now, I'm writing from my hotel room in Seattle, home of Amazon's headquarters and the site of the MBA Flyback Weekend for candidates with offers.  Should be a great time getting to meet more people from the company.  From now until January 9th is winter break for us.  8 hours of sleep a night never sounded so good...

-- Jesse Ferlianto '12

Winter Break is Here!

The last time I had a winter break (or summer break, or spring break, or any kind of "break," for that matter) was a whole six years ago. Re-reading that last sentence, I'm very tempted to wallow a bit in self-pity, but fortunately--or unfortunately--for most first-year students winter break allows no time for mindless dawdling. Please allow me to elaborate:

After the crazy & hectic orientation season came the crazy & hectic recruiting season.

After the crazy & hectic recruiting season came the crazy & hectic finals season.

After the crazy & hectic finals season came the crazy & hectic resume-drop season (present time).

After the crazy & hectic resume-drop season will come the crazy & hectic interview season (January & February).

And then it's time to let out a huge sigh of relief and finally get that haircut you've been putting off for a year and see friends that you've somehow managed to raincheck into oblivion.

Now, keep in mind that folks who are looking to go into marketing, media/entertainment, real estate, or other non-traditional fields will not follow the above-schedule. But for most students who are looking to recruit for consulting or finance, this schedule will hold true. And that's exactly why first quarter of first year is likened to the saying, "drinking water from a firehose." Because it is information-overload at every turn and you have to be comfortable with the dynamic and ever-shifting gears of business school.

And that brings me to point out one of the greatest characteristics and skills to hone in business school: adaptability. We all come in possessing varying degrees of this characteristic but soon will find that we're pushed to our limits. Ultimately, the sheer willingness to change and adapt according to the situation at hand is a great advantage. And this is the overarching theme beneath all the noise.

OK, I'm off my soapbox now. So now that first quarter is over and winter break has officially commenced, what to do? For starters, many of our fellow first years and second years have gone off to ski, snowboard, and just plain lounge in Breckenridge, CO. They seem to be having a blast from all the Facebook picture postings and I feel tinges of jealousy here and there. Alas, I didn't sign up to go so now I'm missing out. But never fear, there are always more cases to practice and cover letters to polish, so the next few weeks will be busy without a doubt. I just hope and pray that by this time next year, I'll be able to bequeath more of my insider knowledge and experiences with the readers--with a job offer in my back pocket.

-- Connie Kim

connie.kim.2013@anderson.ucla.edu

@UCLAMBA

 

Why UCLA Anderson Is a Great Choice For B-school IMHO

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a wonderful day spent with family and friends. I know for us students, it was a welcome day off from studying as we approach finals. There are only two weeks left in the now-infamous first quarter of b-school (I say “now”—I think it was always infamous, I just didn’t really understand until I lived through it myself!), and I will admit to being incredibly ready for the holiday! That said, business school so far has been an amazing experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything. And one quarter into it, I can also safely say that I wouldn’t trade UCLA Anderson for any other business school either.

Another satisfied student votes Anderson!

It’s a tough question- there are many amazing business schools to choose from, how do you know which one is best for you? Complicating things is when you get your heart set on a school and for whatever reason are not able to attend (and by whatever reason, I mean you don’t get in). I've been blogging on this site for awhile, and with luck I've built up a bit of street cred amongst our readers. So I hope you'll trust me when I say that I encourage you to consider UCLA Anderson as seriously as you would any other school, and I include the Top 3 in that as well. Why? Where do I begin…

1)      The quality of people. Every day, every hour, I am amazed, surprised, and delighted by the sheer intellect, ambition, savvy, wisdom, goal-orientation, creativity, and overall high caliber of each of my fellow students, first and second year alike. This is truly a top notch institution to have attracted such amazing talent. There is no doubt in my mind that many people I walk the halls of Anderson with today are going to be tomorrow’s Fortune 50 CEO’s, start-up darlings, and revolutionaries in the non-profit space. It's just an added bonus that everyone is also friendly & helpful, normal (loosely defined), and quite often, hilarious. (At least in Section B, the most awesome section there ever was.)

What was that about “quality of people”??

First Quarter at Anderson and Loving It!

I think the last blog post I wrote was shortly after classes began, and when I look back over my Outlook calendar at what I’ve been up to in the interim, the hiatus makes sense. Even before school when I was working full-time, traveling several times a month, and training for races, I don’t recall feeling this busy. Maybe it seems so hectic because I am constantly changing my focus from academics, to company presentations, to resume and cover letter work, to fulfilling my duties as a First Year Director for three clubs, to a million other things, every day. Or maybe it’s just that even after my 10-12 hour days on campus, I still have homework to do!

In any event, midterms wrapped up on Thursday. Getting back into intense studying mode nine years out of college, for classes I never would have voluntarily picked if I knew I was getting a grade in them, made this quite the experience. If you’re like me, the following looks more like gibberish than the Significance Test for Proportions, but that was something on the Statistics midterm.

I actually wrote this equation in my spare time.

Similarly, you Econ majors might recognize the following as the Cobb-Douglas Principle, but Cobb to me is a salad, not something I am prepared to use to analyze a regression like I (sort of) did last Tuesday.

Cobb-Douglas Principle; Not Pictured: Avocados, bacon, any shred of logic.

But in between all this hard work there has been some fun. There are social activities scheduled many nights of the week, such as Lit Club (Wednesday nights), Anderson Afternoons (every Thursday after classes, free beer on campus!), and football games & tailgates (UCLA beat Cal (Berkeley) in the Homecoming game this weekend!).

Go Bruins!

Two of the highlights have been the 80s Party and the Halloween Party. I’m not sure if it’s an Anderson thing, or a business school thing, but when costumes are involved, people really go all out!

This is a situation where a picture is worth a thousand words.

School Begins, Breathing Ends: First Quarter at UCLA Anderson

Classes started just over a week ago, and if I thought things were going to slow down after Orientation, I was W-R-O-N-G! I have classes beginning at 8 am every day and I rarely leave the Anderson campus until around 8 at night! Good thing it is such a nice facility, but perhaps it could use a few futons… One of my top priorities right now is figuring out how to make everything fit! For the first couple of weeks of class, a typical day looks like this:

6 am – Wake up, chug coffee, catch up on e-mails that have already come in from the East Coast.

8 am – First class begins. My classes this quarter are Managerial Economics, Financial Accounting, Marketing Management, Data and Decisions (don’t be fooled by the name, this is STATS!), and Management Communications. For a liberal arts major many years out of school like me, there is a steep learning curve!

2:15 pm – Classes end, time to meet with my 5-person Learning Team to work on group assignments for a couple of hours. We use one of the awesome group study pods in the beautiful Rosenfeld Library. You can even write on the glass walls!

No, not these glass walls.

4:30 pm – Meet with a career advisor at the Parker CMC (Career Management Center). I’m working hard to get my resume in recruiting-ready shape!

5:00 pm – Squeeze in a quick run. An easy, hilly 4-mile route is simply to run around the UCLA campus. The beautiful Drake Track is very close by and a good place to get in some speedwork. Or get hit on, if you are Bill Wells.

6:30 pm - Change into business casual or a suit for evening recruiting events or professional association meetings. Last week alone, I attended events put on by Amazon, Microsoft, and SanDisk, as well as meetings for the Marketing Association, High Tech Business Association, Women’s Business Connection, and Net Impact.

9:00 pm – Arrive home. Check to see if my fiancé still recognizes me. Begin homework.

You get the idea! But before it sounds like I am complaining, things are certainly busy but it is very empowering to feel like I am in charge of my own destiny and making choices every day that affect the quality and success of my business school experience.

And there are still the weekends! Although I spend the majority of them catching up on all the work the above schedule didn’t permit me to get to during the week, there’s still time to enjoy fabulous Los Angeles.

Making a friend at Malibu beach.

Even if I anticipated this big life change, that doesn’t make it easy. In an effort to maintain some vestige of my former life as a regular competitor in triathlons and marathons, I took my first dip in the Pacific Ocean in the form of the LA Triathlon last weekend. Much to my surprise, I actually got my best time ever at the Olympic distance (.93-mile ocean swim, 25-mile bike, and 10K with two surprise enormous hills). As has become my habit, I am attributing it to the cooler, less humid, amazing weather I am so enjoying here. Stanton came Downtown to LA Live to watch the run, and probably because it was a rare chance for him to actually see me!

Catching some air!

We also bumped into Greg Booth, Anderson ’12, whose fiancé Hadley Hughes (below right) was doing her first ever tri. We all agreed it's much easier to smile when the race is over!

So life continues to evolve here at UCLA Anderson. On balance, I am loving it so far. But speaking of balance, I will certainly be happier when (if??) I ever get any!

 -Charlotte Baxter

Odyssey Ropes Course at UCLA Anderson!

As Charlotte mentioned in the previous post, orientation has officially kicked off a couple weeks ago and then the bloggers disappeared off the face of the earth.  To be more specific, we clearly are enjoying our time too much socializing and studying (cough) to update our readers.  It sounds a bit blunt, but it's the honest truth.  On top of taking on a 2-unit course on the foundations of leadership--complete with a final exam--our schedules pretty much run from Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM.  And sometimes, we have to stay on campus until 7 PM (the horror!).  The Anderson admin really has tried to break up the week as much as possible, so we'll have one day of being absorbed in academia and another immersed in various physical activities.  One such physical activity that we were subject to is the Odyssey ropes course.  

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Parker Career Management Center at UCLA

Orientation officially kicks off in about two weeks, but the communication from faculty and staff keeps rolling out at full speed.  In a series of 12 total logistical emails to be sent out before orientation, we are now finally at number 12.  The clock's ticking fast and the anticipation is thick in the air.  So what better way to calm our nerves than to have us get a head start by visiting the Parker Career Management Center (Parker CMC)?  

From now up through the end of orientation, the Parker CMC career advisors will strive to meet with each of us on an one-on-one basis to better gauge where we are with our career selection process.  This is strictly a preliminary meet-and-greet, but it's heartening to know that Anderson is taking its new career-focused curriculum very seriously.

Inside one of Anderson's buildings.  

With the advent of the new curriculum, we will be meeting much more frequently with our advisors and with our ACT groups.  We will actually choose from several career-based "tracks" and this will give recruiters a clearer understanding of what our academic skillsets will be.  We will also be allowed to get specific "certifications" in many pertinent areas, such as consulting, banking, marketing, entrepreneurship, real estate, and media.  

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